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Self-acceptance is not a mythical creature everyone knows about but never really saw. It’s real. And unlike a unicorn, whose absence is not that vital for our lives, self-acceptance decides whether you’re going to have the life of your dream or not. It’s also vital for your mental health.

I always say that self-acceptance is where it either begins or ends for you. It’s one of the major keys to having a happy, fulfilling life.

Now, let’s turn to the definition of self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is, first and foremost, a form of awareness of your strengths and weaknesses (your positives and your negatives) either given by nature or shaped by life circumstances.

It begins with learning all aspects ...

If you were an apple, there would be needed two halves to make you whole. Well, in case with us, humans, two halves would not be enough to form your naturally multisided personality and complete a healthy balance to your cooperation with the outside world.

What I mean by that? In my previous post I wrote about self-acceptance and its importance in acquiring solid ground for personal growth and development. I stressed that self-acceptance is not one-time thing you can get once and for all but rather a journey of awareness where each time you learn better.

Well, these 5 spheres that lie in the base of shaping the understanding of your worthiness as an individual in the society, are responsible for not only sharpening your awareness, which impr...

It’s been always the same, like a badly written story where one human being stands against another. Some use fists to defend their truths, others are sharp at tongue. Each is reluctant to give up.

But does it really matter?

It’s a fact that huge part of people living on this planet struggle to make their lives better. This is understandable. Each has their list of beliefs, deeply engraved on the innate side of their being. But for what I learned, if the life you have today is not yet the life of your dream then surely, the beliefs you’re guarding so much are not simply working for you.

For some reasons, it’s in us to feel like defending ourselves against people’s thoughts, people’s words, people’s actions, in othe...

I was born in Russia. How did it happen that almost half of my life I’ve consciously dedicated to learning English, I find rather hard to narrate in few words… But today’s reality is that one of the main things I do for living is working as a freelance translator, using both my passion for English language and my Russian roots to provide the best translations for my clients.

But sometimes, being a translator can be tricky. Mainly, because being a freelance translator means being a negotiator as well. So, before my work as a translator begins, I have to make sure that the ground for the work laying ahead is solid and my collaboration with the client is build right.

As a translator with experience, I’m aware of all the aspects...

"Short story is not a sailing ship to take you far in the ocean but a boat to transport you fast on the other side."

Honestly, I had not much of interest in short stories before. I — an experienced bookworm — obviously, preferred full length novels over twelve-page stories. I liked to sail far rather than jump in for a short ride. Till one day, I accidently got The Magic Shop by H. G. Wells in my hands. Unwrapped on a very delicate line between illusion and reality, it was narrated in such exquisite way that I was immediately dragged in, headfirst.

This was the beginning of my journey into the world of short stories.

Doubtless today, I can assure you, that reading short stories is, indeed, one of the greatest ways to delv...

Everyone has a view at what happiness is. Some, manage to find happiness in mundane things, like taking a stroll outside in the morning, others search happiness beyond things that can be touched, dedicating their daily activities to spiritual practices and self-education.

But what about ultimate happiness – the state of mind that is peaceful and content?

In this easy conversation, I want to share 10 reasons that might be the cause of your yet not found happiness.

Reason #1 Internal Conflict

‘The scariest monsters are those who lurk within our souls.’ by Edgar Alan Poe

I’ve never met a person who did not have some internal conflicts to de...

There is only one way to turn one book into many, and it is to TRANSLATE.

Yet, the amount of books that never get a chance to be translated is enormous. It is even more so in the world of Indie Authors and their baby books. If you want to taste how truly dramatic this is, imagine ocean of books, drifting away from the starving hearts of its potential readers.

Imagine Shakespeare, drowned in among those drifting away waters of words.

Imagine Kafka, never crossing the border of Germany.

As a Russian/English speaking person, I’ve read dozens and dozens of books, some of them written by my favorite American/British Indie Authors, that will more likely never ...

Good translator is not a unicorn. Surely if you know where to look, you will find plenty.

The most common way – Translation Agencies. But even though it is one of the easiest ways to find a translator for your book, it will cost you times more as well.

So if you are an Indie Author on a limited budget, what do you do? Where do you search? And the most important question: how to do you find a right translator for your book?

If you have ever asked any of those questions, you are in the right place. The answer is Freelance Translators.

Choosing between Translation Agencies and Freelance Translators, it would be unfair to say that one is better than the other, cause bot...

We are living in times, when everything has a price but this price is not always reasonable.

Who would not want to save some money if there is a chance to? Especially, when we talk about Book Translation.

Don’t get me wrong. There are no witless toilers ready to translate your book for a hundred of bucks. Book Translation takes time and money, and time is one of the main things that can help you to save some money! Another thing that might be useful regarding saving is Reason. About this we will talk in a moment, but before, let’s have a look at how price for Book Translation is formed.

1. Book Length

In my previous posts on ...

I remember good days like a vague outline of the bridge which I enter on the days, dark like night sky.

It affects my writing. It affects me. It affects people, I care about. And even though there is no way to dispel clouds from life once and for all, there is still a way to help yourself stay on both feet in the storm of dark days.

Journaling yourself out of anything!

I was 10 years old when I first met people involved in business, self-development, mental/physical health and all of them in one voice were telling about the power of journaling. I was so wired up with their energy and even though I was just a ten years old girl and hardly could tell if I needed to journal myself out of anything (I was writing in my diary sometimes, but most of the ...

To make a written text shine you need to trust it to the hands of a knowing polisher

—Editor.

Exquisitely written books not just tell you a story, they speak it to you as if this very story is the echo of your own life. Exquisitely written books have logical flow and don’t tolerate meaningless words on their golden pages. Just like in the creation of life, in exquisitely written books all elements are important for healthy functioning of the whole organism (whether it is life or a story).

But what has it to do with book translation, you may ask?! And the answer to this questions is rather simple.

Everything.

Unlike technical, commercial, scientific, etc., translations, literat...

For years, I was holding any thoughts of becoming a Literary Translator at bay, mainly, because as a writer, I did not want to do anything else but write. But life has its own ways with us and every time I was fortunate enough to stumble across an amazing book, I was shown over and over again the sad side of the exquisite world of writing.

Most of the things you write half of the world will never have a chance to know just because it will never be translated.

But today, when I am seriously taking on the Literary Translation Mission, I more and more discover pitfalls that I think might be the reasons why Book Translation, even to the present day, stays a blurry spot in the world of Literature.

How can it be otherwise, you can say, considering how t...

Have you ever met a small person? I’m not talking about size, even though for some size is what really matters. I’m talking about emotional aspect of human presence that makes some of us look like a tiny dot lost in never ending space of any room we walk in. Whereas others, once inside of that same room, would make us feel they are the only ones in it.

So, what was wrong with the Bird that looked like a Fly? One thing obviously – it’s was not a Fly. It was a BIRD! So, why it looked like a fly to everyone else?

For me, as I’m sure for most of you, this matter is personal. We all do this, whether we realize it or not. We make ourselves, in most cases unintentionally, look like mere flies, when in fact, we are gorgeous, cheery birds.

How do you learn the mastery of literary translation? By translating.

The more you translate the better you get. But there is a side effect and I'm just going to call it what it is – over-confidence.

In real life, confidence helps us to move up the professional ladder, to get more friends or to achieve the boldest dreams we could only have. And yet, according to the law of the balance, good things are good in a right amount. Overdose of any good can be a cause of the most surprising in scale disasters.

Over-confidence in literary translation is like driving Bugatti through the streets of London in a doped state. In other words, not a good idea. But I’ll try to keep metaphors aside and get straight to the business.

Being a ...

Have you ever seen a leafless tree in the middle of Spring? What would you think if you saw one?

Poor tree, it’s probably dying – this is what I would definitely find among a flush of different thoughts in my head at the sight of this picture. I would feel sad seeing it bare and weak standing among the countless green ones around it. I would think, it was unfair.

Here’s what happened to me a few years ago. I moved from a noisy city to a small town framed at both sides by vast fields and woods. Place that I personally believe to be wildlife heaven. It’s the place where a plain crown looks like a fashion model and hedgehogs are enjoying their bust lives on your backyard.

It was Spring and everything around stood in magnif...

It’s been almost five years since I first discovered freelance as a way of living for myself.

For a long time, I kept definition of freelance and business separate in my mind. When I started out as a newbie in the field of, as I used to define it, independent work from home I had no idea what a complex, demanding, and at times competitive venture it really was. And since usually the word business made me think about a tie and a black leather case, for a long time I was refusing to admit that freelance was also a very special kind of business.

Now, all those years later, freelance and business are some kind of synonyms for me. Because making a living as a freelancer means to be a good tête-à-tête businessman (woman).

Why you? T...

This brilliant with its simplicity question stands in the base of the professional journey called freelance. But how many of freelancers can actually answer to this question?

For a long time, I was following this false belief that the answer to this question was something only high-level professional freelancers could know. I thought of it as one thinks about math; that only talented wits can get it. But in the cloud of this mindset, I forgot about one absolutely important thing: freelance is all about experience and every experience is different.

So the answer to this question is not one for everyone but rather it’s a mechanism that sets the tone to the future personal progress in freelance.

Over the years, I learnt a few ways that helped me...

Unimaginable amount of possibilities and opportunities that exist in the world can easily cloud our minds, weaken us, and strip off our inborn greatness. And clarity is the only way to avoid it.

I know from personal experience how hard it can be to plan out even just a week ahead, gather the data and set everything the best way possible, so all the goals could have been achieved and all the projects successfully executed. It’s a complicated process that most of people struggle to perform. And this is perhaps one of the superpowers highly successful people have mastered.

It’s especially important if you, just like me, have a trouble to direct the focus of your mind to one direction, constantly finding yourself veering off and paying attention to things tha...

Habit is what makes all people wear clothes. But what about the habit of daily reading?

I used to be an avid reader. English literature and urban fiction writers made it easy for me to merge with the idea of daily reading. Later, I discovered the world of non-fiction and audiobooks and it seemed the goal was reached. I finally adopted the habit of daily reading.

But life swiftly flooded in and I dived into freelance with more serious intentions. My time was split into 3 hour pieces and little by little I started skipping my reading hours. My habit of daily reading turned into a habit of daily avoidance of reading.

So, I did a research and found out a few quite interesting facts about why are we struggling to read books.

Unresolved stress

It took me a while to reflect on this idea – you can be anyone and do anything you want, but for some reasons you keep replacing doors with walls and then cry ‘how unfair life is.’

It may look like the whole world is against you but what is really happening is that you keep limiting yourself, creating new and new barriers on your way to a happy living.

Subconscious has unimaginable power over your life; all the things it believes in sooner or later becomes your only reality. If you believe that you have no time or capability to work towards your dream, then you lost without even starting.

3 Bullheads of How You Limit Yourself

You predict without actual trying

Think how many times you came to a conclusion based merel...

What happens in your mind is as real as what happens in your life, for connection between what you think and what you see is stronger than you can imagine.

As a passive aggressor, anxiety club member, and overly ambitious human being, I always searched for grounding techniques to help me balance my mental world and the world I was living in. 

I wanted to have a choice during the anxiety attacks, to have a better understanding of my passive aggressive behavior and be free in my choice of actions. I wanted to stay conscious even when it was about unconscious. I did not want to be a puppet in hands of the mental, unsolicited processes that tended to get out of control and affect my life from day to day.

I wanted to be balanced and meditation became t...

It is not a secret—life can be overwhelming, hard, and challenging. Each of us has their own share of bitter and sour, and ironically, this is probably one of the most normal things about life.

We all have good days and bad days but what about weeks or even months of downfalls and other life trails? How do we keep going when we think we can’t do anymore?

I was sixteen when I started thinking about being a writer with all seriousness and determination. A girl that knew only few words in English dreamed to be an English-speaking writer; they told me, why would not you try to write in your native language first, but it is not we who choose the dream, it’s the dream that chooses us. I learnt it the hard way.

I have been always persistent ...

I’ll tell you a story: once, there was a girl that believed she could do anything. But things she did at the end of the day were not the right things and so, her greatness started slowly dissipating. Is not it what magic in reverse looks like?

As a human, you have the privilege to be anyone and to do anything you can only imagine. But in the world, where everything fights for your attention, where colours and smells are there to entice you to want what you don’t even need, where fashionable pictures of super stars look down at you daily affecting your idea of the beautiful, and where information does not go through filters of valid or reasonable, this privilege plays a bad joke on you.

It messes up with your head; if you can be anyone why cannot you be ev...

Mad world—what are you doing to the creative minds that are your only salvation?

What, not dramatic enough?

I think this conversation is not going to be easy for both of us but we have to talk about it anyway.

No matter how passionate or confident you are about your dream, there come the times when things just don’t work out the way you expected. Those times leave you vulnerable and unprotected in front of the hungry, never satisfied cockroaches sneaking here and there.

They are the kind of people who do not tolerate big dreamers. They are the kind of people, mom taught you to avoid.

But when you are emotionally unprotected, you cannot escape them.

When you are emotionally unprotected, they will find you even on the...

We are not Hansel, nor are we Gretel but so often our lives remind the German folklore tale by the Brothers Grimm.

Left with a fake promise, we wonder through the wild of the forest called life, searching for our way back home.

But sometimes we lose the sight of the right path and stumble upon the home of a witch, completely unprepared for the danger waiting for us there.

And so we think, we are lost but are we?

When you feel lost

I have always been fond of fairy tales but only when I became older did I realize their true value.

Is not it ironic?

And the story about Hansel and Gretel feels to me as a great analogy to what we are going to talk about today.

Do you remember when on the way into the forest, Ha...

Science has always been my favorite kind of voice.

I love the way it talks about the brain, its plasticity, its limitations and other aspects of its functioning.

We all have it and we all use it, so we just have to know more about it.

But I am not a scientist.

I am a writer!

So, I am going to talk about it as a writer of my kind would.

Lift your hand up to your face and put your palm on your forehead.

This is where the story of today’s conversation begins.

This is where your prefrontal cortex is.

What is prefrontal cortex

Prefrontal cortex is a very important part of your brain that sits right under the skull of your forehead and is responsible for your conscious interactions with...

From time to time, my mind explodes with this thought.

They do not understand me!—something in me shouts.

And for next few days, I am upset, sad, and angry. All because I feel like they do not understand me.

But what about the other question that so often is dismissed from this equation?

The question is, do you understand yourself?

I bet you have never thought about it but so often you steal from yourself.

You steal time from yourself by giving too much attention to the negative monologues happening in your head.

You steal opportunities from yourself by choosing to crawl back in your shell when something goes slightly off your plan or expectation.

You steal chances from yourself to deeply connect wit...

I am a mentally strong person with a bunch of sensitive spots in my mind as well as in my heart.

And quite often (almost every day), I get into a condition when my inner peace and balance are somewhat off.

To help me to get my mind back in the right watercourse and put my heart on the channel of contentment and calmness, I created my new evening ‘me-time’ routine.

Connection to…

When I was 14, everything was so different in my eyes.

The colors of nature were brighter and it was easier to get lost in the world of imagination where everything, somehow made perfect sense.

I built forests and I saved princesses.

I even gifted horses with the strength of gods.

I did not define myself as being...

It always starts as joke till someone’s feelings get hurt.

I know, humor is much needed and highly appreciated thing in our society. But the problem with it is that so many people use it as a weapon of verbal attacks against other people.

To me, it looks like stabbing someone in the back and then trying to convince the court that it was just a joke.

Someone died?

Well, it is not my problem that that someone does not have a sense of humor.

There are countless reasons as to why it happens. One of them is unwillingness to take responsibility for actions and words since there is no law regulating humor in our society.

It is too complicated and let’s be honest, so many people just do not care.

But it does not m...

If there was a conversation before the life on earth was created, I would imagine it be like that.

Nothing is perfect.

Fortunately!

Beauty has become a target for wars of objective opinions.

The lenses through which we look at the world got blurry by marketing tricks, fashion trends and other social media propaganda.

Yet, more and more people learn to see uniqueness within imperfections and though slowly we seem to be opening our hearts to the different beauty of appearances, there are other aspects of life that seem to get all the extra weight from that.

When the path of self-fulfillment gets slippery

What is life for if not for the fulfilment of one’s hopes and ambitions.

I have been envisioning this moment for a few months now.

I have been picturing you and me getting cozy with a cup of tea and following the inborn curiosity and craving to bring a bit more of health awareness to our lives.

But like two serpents in the caduceus, a healthy body is entwined with a healthy mind where one is simply impossible without the other.

Fortunately, I have been extremely lucky to get at early age into the circle of people that know and cherish the natural and fully organic sources of getting to a healthier lifestyle.

And aromatherapy was one of the first steps my family took towards a healthier and more conscious living.

What is aromatherapy?

Aromatherapy is one of the most pleasurable a...

My entire life is a product of rejection.

Hmm…

Would it be too much to say that my spin of rejections began at early age and had been dragging my subconscious through all these years with a pompous disdain?

Possibly yes!

Fortunately, I survived, became stronger and created this tiny nook of mine to rant all about my experience and share a survival guide I have developed for all these years that helps me keep going through the spin of rejections unharmed.

Well, almost unharmed.

I mean, not that I am an expert on it but I have developed a quite working scheme that helps me to come back from the burning aches of rejections in a matter of few hours.

Fine, sometimes it takes longer than that but listen, I know some ...